OFFLINE

I have been asked why should one use a food calculator when I could just pick up extra of what my family eats every day. Well that is easy. A food storage calculator gives you a starting point and goal.

Many of the calculators out there are based on guidelines from the LDS Church - the Mormons - to their members. There are good things and bad about that. The good is the Mormons have recommended for their member to keep at least one years worth of food for decades now, so they have already done the hard work for you. They have already done the studies on what type of food would be best to store up on, shelf life, nutrition, and balance diet. The bad is the calculators do not have meats or take in consideration, dietary needs due to health issues or if you are of a different religion with different dietary restrictions - e.g. Judaism with the need for kosher or Islamic with the need for the food to be halal.

Now please don't let that put you off, use the resources out there as a starting point to help you and your family, then subtract what you know your family will not eat and add other items that you want to have. Here is a personal example, on most food storage calculators they have listed lima beans, soy beans and lentils, my family refuses to eat these - so I added more split peas, pinto beans and red beans. Also, it does not have coffee or teas listed - so I have done my own calculations on how much we drink during the month multiplied by the months of storage I have - then added that to my storage.